Office break...

Working from Monday to Saturday, from 7am to 6pm, is not my idea of "the good life." I think that's almost equal to slavery!

So when a chance to take a break comes along, I grab it with both hands.

After office hours today (I close from the office at 1pm on Saturdays, thank God!), I quickly went to Asokoro for the birthday party of the daughter of the Ambassador of Malaysia, and that's where I had my lunch... of delectable Malaysian dishes prepared by Madam Sitti herself.

Before I said goodbye, she invited me to have a look at her garden at the back of the house.

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Dinner at the Royal China Restaurant - Take 2

I was with the Staff of the Embassy of the Philippines in Abuja last Thursday for dinner at the Royal China Restaurant,  at the invitation of the restaurant's manager, Mr. Pit, whom I met a couple of years ago.

Mr. Pit is one of the friendliest Chinese citizens you could ever met. He hosted the dinner in honour of the Embassy of the Philippines.



Posted by Araceli Aipoh

I'm a bathroom gardener

My bathroom plants. I've never been a keen gardener, but  I have decided to start a small garden right inside
the bathroom. Let's see how it goes, but it's really nice to see the little ones doing well
before taking a shower in the morning.

Today is the first day of a four-day Muslim holiday.

I need more than four days! So much to do!

At home alone, the wardrobes need to be tidied up, the books and magazines need to be arranged, the PPA Newsletter for November 2011 needs to be done ( it might not get published at all if things don't get sorted out tonight!), and  the photos on the laptop need to be labeled and a new back up created (which means I need to get a new external storage device).

On top of that, the PPA GRAND BAZAAR is coming up next week and the officers need to meet! And I have to get a new attire (do I have to, really?) for the Thai Loy Kratong Festival coming up on the 12th of November.

Then I have to sort out the photos for METRO ZONE and design the page, but I can't do that unless I've had a meeting with Kingi, the editor of LeVogue Magazine, and Carol, the graphics designer. My meeting with them has been postponed three times already. Kingi and I couldn't just reconcile our schedules, and now the holidays, so we will just have to meet next week.  Fingers crossed. 

But tomorrow, Sunday, 5th November 2011,  I'm going to spend the whole day looking for more plants to add to my bathroom plants collection - in the morning that is, because in the afternoon I'm going for a meeting with my officemates (Izabella and Thalie) at the JBN Clubhouse.

That's two days gone already.

Posted by Araceli Aipoh

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Football in Abuja

It's not everyday that a World Cup competition takes place right in your neighborhood. So when that happens, you, you grab it with both hands. And since I also need some photos for Inside Track Magazine, I joined some of my colleagues last Saturday (October 24) to watch one of the games in the on-going FIFA UNDER 17 WORLD CUP: Nigeria vs Germany. It was a draw at 3-3.

The game was billed at 7:00pm (it did not start until 7:30 because of the heavy rain) but we got to the National Stadium around 5pm (my first time to enter the German-made stadium since I came to Abuja). Honduras and Argentina were playing the first match. Earlier in the morning, the Opening Ceremony took place in the same venue.

Anyway it was fun...but I felt sorry for the players from Argentina and Honduras. They were rain-soaked while playing.

Hectic days ahead

If things go well and as planned (we believe in Divine intervention), the 3rd edition of Inside Track Magazine will be out in a couple of weeks. There was a long break since the 2nd edition was published, but we are doing this for the fun of it, so no issues there, but that's another story. Now, after office hours, we go out covering some of the major events here in Abuja, which is both work and fun, and which is why we are busy. The 4th Spanish Cultural Week and the European Film Festival are two of such events. There are also a couple of meetings to attend this weekend - and next weekend (October 31) there will be the Association of Nigerian Authors' Convention in Minna, Niger State, of which there is a great possibility of me attending. Minna is about 2 hours drive from Abuja. The photo above was taken at the Cocktail Party on the opening night of the European Film Festival here in Abuja. I was with Her Excellency the Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago (left) and Mr. and Mrs. Jacob of Global Equipment.

Kapital FM Interview

After seeing a copy of INSIDE TRACK MAGAZINE a couple of weeks ago, the host of the radio program CREATIVE WORLD, Alice Akale, a veteran broadcaster, sent me a text asking me for an interview.

This is just one of the ways to promote the magazine so I readily agreed, and of course, it's nice to have another new friend in Alice.

Photos (click to enlarge) show Alice and I at the Radio Nigeria studio, 12th Floor. The interview was aired last Monday, March 30, at around 3:15pm.

At the Hilton for the Political Leaders

For a future story for the mag, we were at the Hilton Hotel last Tuesday.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE...

Meanwhile, it's been a hectic week. The April Edition of the mag is ready to roll out from the printing press.

And now we have to prepare for the 3rd Edition, focusing (we are planning) on some Abuja personalities.

Photo Gallery

At the Hilton...

(Click on photo to enlarge)

Write up on the PLRTFI follows shortly.

Let's talk about love - Part 2

Falling in love...with a kitten

My 14 –year old daughter brought home a scrawny little kitten on Valentine’s Day.

Found on the playgrounds of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, the kitten is already attached to my daughter, meowing loudly in panic whenever she (my daughter) leaves the room. Named Valerie, or Vally for short (because she was found on Valentine’s Day), the kitten is quite dirty and malnourished, so I told my daughter to fast-track the feeding and give her a bath.

This reminds me of a couple of stories I heard about cats when I was little. One is that you don’t give a bath to a cat. If you do, it rains. Another cat story is that they protect kids from the devil. How? According to the story, the devil comes near a sleeping child with the intention of taking her soul. He sees the cat guarding the child and tells the cat he wants to take the child. The cat says the devil can only do that if he can count the number of hairs on the cat’s body. The devil agrees and begins counting. When the devil is about to finish counting, the cat moves, confusing the devil. This means the devil will have to start counting all over again – and again and again, until he gets tired. The cat wins and the devil leaves the sleeping child alone.

And I guess this is one reason why moms allow their kids to have cats as pets...


Meanwhile, let it be a year of loving, living, laughing, achieving, and more...


CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE

The past few days...

Preparations for the next edition of Inside Track Magazine are in full swing.

Yes, folks, I am going to use that as an excuse for not making a post...

The excitement builds up. Lots of work to do, there’s no doubt about that... the interviews, the photo ops, the press conferences, the sitting down with the graphic artists for the page-by-page design, liaising with writers, covering events, the dinners and cocktails... and many other things.

It’s a good thing we have reliable members of the Editorial Team: Segun Oke, Ramon Ruste, Antonio Santos...who have been with us all the way.

We want to give our readers a really great magazine – and that’s why we’ve been working round the clock.

In the midst of all that, there are other great news. I am going to revive my column in one of the country’s top financial newspapers, MONEYWISE. I received a pleasant call from Ayo Arowolo himself, a friend and the Publisher/Editor in Chief of Moneywise, requesting me to continue writing for them – and I agreed, so I have to write like four or five articles at a time. Publication of my articles (my column is called MONEY DIARY) will resume in March.

And then, there’s good news concerning my novel, NO SENSE OF LIMITS...which I will have to withhold for now, but I promise I will keep you all updated once it is in the can.